By Erik S. Reinert, Francesca Lidia Viano
Erik S. Reinert, Francesca Lidia Viano (eds.)
After his dying Thorstein Veblen used to be hailed as ‘America’s Darwin and Marx’ and is generally portrayed because the perennial iconoclast. He significantly criticised conventional economics and tried to create another technique according to a way more advanced view of humans. he's essentially the most celebrated economists of our age and has been the foundation for plenty of books; the predatory model of capitalism we now back event, the phenomenon of learning cultures of intake and the darker aspects of gilded a while may be traced again to Veblen. A convention in Veblen’s ancestral Norway marked the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of his delivery. the purpose of the convention was once to consolidate Veblen scholarship and evaluation his relevance for the issues of at the present time. This assortment bargains the result of that endeavour; it's a milestone of Vebleniana which assesses all of the so much salient facets of his lifestyles and effect. lots of its participants additionally push into uncharted territory, interpreting the fellow and his paintings from new and valuable views hitherto missed by means of scholarship.
Reviews:
‘[T]he book’s essays provide a truly attention-grabbing token of Veblen scholarship and an eloquent exemplification of the cross-disciplinary attraction of Veblen’s genius’ —Giorgio Baruchello, ‘Nordicum-Mediterraneum’
‘An very important publication for all social scientists. The participants either situate Veblen traditionally and convey his paintings alive for dialogue of up to date concerns – and his paintings is particularly valuable indeed.’ —Craig Calhoun, Director, London institution of Economics and Political technology (LSE)
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Additional info for Thorstein Veblen: Economics for an Age of Crises (Anthem Other Canon Economics)
Sample text
Men so shabbily dressed did not travel first-class. 7 Veblen obviously had a strong personality, but his passions were not immediately visible. 8 Taking a parallel from mountain lakes, a Norwegian saying postulates that ‘the quietest of waters are the most profound’9 – ‘still waters run deep’ – the quietest people are the ones who often know the most. Here Peer Gynt is the noisy one and Veblen represents the quietest and, therefore, the more profound waters. But both Peer Gynt and Thorstein Veblen had an ability to charm women, sometimes also those of other men.
A paraphrase of the Veblenian term ‘contamination of instincts’ is appropriate here: neoclassical economics ‘contaminated’ the common sense instincts of economics. It is worth mentioning that Thorstein Veblen some years later, in 1925, was also offered the prestigious chairmanship of the American Economic Association. An (undated) copy of Veblen’s letter to Edwin Seligman rejecting the offer, primarily for health reasons, was found by Knut Odner in the archives of Carleton College. 45 In my view, this distinction is still extremely useful in order to come to grips with the history of economic thought and with the crisis of today.
The non-feudal history of Norway – so importantly emphasised in Kåre Lunden’s chapter in this book – simply reinforces the point made above; the values Veblen brought with him from Valdres were fully compatible with ‘Veblen the European Enlightenment scholar’ and ‘Veblen the American’. All these three versions of Veblen produce the kind of idealism and spirit of insubordination which is recognisable in Veblen’s personality. 39 Reflecting on the difference between Norwegian and European idealism at the time of Veblen and now, one observation might be that such idealism has now moved 26 THORSTEIN VEBLEN: ECONOMICS FOR AN AGE OF CRISES from attacking root causes of unfairness and poverty towards an institutionalised ‘regime of goodness’ which concentrates on alleviating the symptoms of, rather than curing the causes of, poverty.